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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


LOGUF  ^ 


r 


CATALOGUE 

OF  AN  EXHIBITION  ILLUSTRATING 

THE  VARIED  INTERESTS  OF 

BOOK  BUYERS 

14.50-  1600 

Selected  mainly  from  the  Collections  of  Members  of 

The  Club  of  Odd  Volumes 

And  held  at  the  Club  House,  50  Mt.  VerJion  Street 

March  18  to  March  26,  ig22 


BOSTON 

The  Club  of  Odd  Volumes 
1922 


'this  Exhibition  is  made  possible  by  the  cooperation  of  the 
Members  of  the  Club  to  whom  the  Committee  has  appealed 
for  assistance;  in  particular  to  Messrs.  Hart,  Betnis, 
Brigham,  Goodspeed,  Hunnewell,  Murdoch,  Nichols, 
Shillaber,  Streeter,  Updike,  and  Webster.  I'he  Club  is 
also  under  obligations  to  Harold  W.  Bell,  Pierre  de  C. 
La  Rose,  Marsden  J.  Perry,  Bruce  Rogers,  and  to  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society. 

William  K.  Richardson 
jtohn  Woodbury 
George  P.  Winship 


490G1 


1> 


THE  FIRST  PRINTED  BOOK  is  known  as  ^"•^^^^^^^'^      I 
Latin  Bible, 
the  Gutenberg,  Mazarin,  or  the  Forty-two  Mainz,  1450-1456 
Line,  Bible,  from  the  Printer,  the  Owner  of  the 
copy  which  first  attracted  notice  as  being  the 
First  Book  printed  from  Movable  Ijpe,  or  the  Number  of 
Lines  on  a  page.  The  two  volumes  of  the  complete  work 
were  finished  before  August  15,  1456.  The  leaves  ex- 
hibited comprise  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John. 

John  Gutenberg  nowhere  put  his  name  on  any 
book  with  which  he  can  be  associated.  The  only  work 
produced  by  him  about  which  there  is  no  reasonable  con-  Balbus,  2 

troversy  is  the  Catholicon,  an  encyclopedic  compilation  Mainz,  Gutenberg, 
by  Johannes  Balbus,  dated  at  Mainz  in  1460.  Alfred  h6o 
W.  Pollard,  an  honorary  member  of  the  Club,  has  pointed 
out  that  "We  can  imagine  an  inventor  who,  despite  his 
invention,  remained  profoundly  unsuccessful,  writing 
the  opening  words  of  this  colophon  [which  states  that 
the  book  was  produced  'by  the  help  of  the  Most  High 
.  .  .  who  ofttimes  reveals  to  the  lowly  that  which  He 
hides  from  the  wise']  —  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  their 
appropriateness  to  anyone  else." 

J  OH  ANN  Fust,  a  Mainz  banker  who  loaned  money  to 
Gutenberg  in  1450  and  1452,  and  his  son-in-law,  Peter 
Schoeffer,  the  most  skilful  printer  of  his  time,  in  1457 
possessed  the  equipment  used  in  producing  the  First 
Bible.  Fust  &  Schoeffer  put  their  name  and  the  mark 
showing  their  coats  of  arms  at  the  end  of  nearly  every 
book  from  their  press.  The  reference  to  the  c;lory  which  "J^^ttman,  r^ 

,  '  ,  A  /f    •  -111  c  i'i5tituttones,  O 

prmtmg  had  conferred  upon  Mamz,  m  the  colophon  of  Mainz,  Schoeffer, 
the  Institutes  of  Justinian,  printed  by  Schoeffer  in  1476,  '+7''> 
after  Fust's  death,  is  ty{)ical  of  the  language  they  ordi- 
narily used.  They  never  suggested  that  either  had  any- 


thing  to  do  with  the  discovery.  This  is  significant  if  the 
invention  was  perfected  with  Fust's  money  and  if,  as  is 
supposed,  SchoefFer  was  the  principal  workman  employed 
by  the  inventor. 

JoHANN  Mentelin  of  Strassburg, whcrc  Gutenberg 
4  Maximus,  lived  from  1430  to  1448,  and  his  son-in-law,  Adolf 
strassburg,  Rusc/i,  RuscH,  wcte  the  earliest  rivals  of  the  Mainz  printers. 
The  technical  crudity  of  much  of  their  work  suggests 
that  they  may  have  acquired  their  training  before  the 
details  of  the  invention  had  been  perfected.  This  lack 
of  skill  is  shown  by  two  facing  pages  in  Dionysius  de 
BuRGo's  Comjne?itary  on  Valerius  Maximus,  on  one  ofwhich 
Rusch  used  over  300  contractions  in  order  to  get  the 
necessary  text  onto  the  page,  whereas  the  next  has  less 
than  a  quarter  as  many.  Rusch  is  better  known  as  "the 
R  Printer,"  from  his  use  of  a  peculiar  capital  R  in  some 
of  the  books  supposed  to  have  been  printed  by  him.  As 
neither  he  nor  Mentelin  ordinarily  put  any  name,  place, 
or  date  on  their  work,  their  books  have  to  be  identified 
by  peculiarities  of  the  type. 
„.  „.,  , .  GuNTHER ZAiNERof  Augsburg  wasanother early com- 

5      Die  Btbel  tn  ,  r    ^        r^^    •  xr    n  •  '-i->i  A  1 

reutsch,  petitor  of  the  Rhme  Valley  prmters.  The  Augsburg  wood 

Augsburg,  engravers  opposed  the  introduction  of  the  new  method 

(j.Xainer,  c.  1475  ^  ^^ 

of  making  books  cheaply,  until  they  had  been  guaran- 
teed extra  work.  This  explains  why  the  city  became  a 
publishing  centre  for  vernacular  literature  and  for  illus- 
trated books.  The  German  Bible  from  Zainer's  press,  with 
many  pictorial  initials,  was  William  Morris's  copy,  and 
was  studied  by  him  while  designing  the  types  for  his 

f.  Chaucer,  Works,  Kelmscott  Press.  Bcsidc  it  is  Morris's  own  copy,  on 
London,  vellum,  of  the  Kehnscott  Chaucer,  and  also  the  original 

1896^^  '       sketch  of  one  of  the  illustrations,  by  Burne-Jones.  A 


later  Augsburg  book,  is  Jacobus  Publicius,  Oratoris  ar-  Pubiidus,  « 

tis  e^itoma, printed  by  Erhard  Ratdolt,  who  shows  the  Jtlgsburg,  Ratdoit, 
influence  of  his  ten  years  at  Venice.  It  contains  a  curi-  1+90 
ous  alphabet  and  chessboard. 

HiLDEBRAND  BrANDENBURG  of  Bibcrach  was  a  book  ^'-  Bonawn-         g 

buyer  of  this  early  period  who  patronized  the  press  by  salutis,  Cologne, 
having  his  bookplate  printed.  Two  volumes  from  his  ^oMoff,  1474 
library,  which  he  gave  to  the  Charterhouse  at  Buxheim, 
contain  this  plate:  the  St.  Bonaventura  printed  at  Co- 
logne in  I474and  thtSermones  of  Antonius  de  Bitonto,  ^''°"'°y  n 
from  Johann  Griiniger's  press  at  Strassburg  in  1496.  An-  strassburg, 
other  plate,  designed  by  Albrecht  Durer  for  Bilibal-  Gruniger,  1496 
Dus  Pirckheimer,  a  Nuremberg  lawyer  who  became 
one  of  the  leading  scholars  of  the  Reformation,  is  in  a 
volume  which  illustrates  the  way  in  which  German  read- 
ers depended  upon  the  Italian  presses  for  books  dealing  nionysius,        y--, 
with  Renascence  subjects.  This  is  Dionysius   Hali-  jntiquttaus, 

J.  .,     .      .      .       .  J-,  .  ,  Trcviso,  Bernard. 

carnassus,  Lion  AnUqvitatum  Komanarmn^  prmted  at  cekrius,  1480 
Treviso  by  Bernardinus  Celerius  in  1480. 

Conrad  Sweynheym  and  Arnold  Pannartz,  more  (^'^^fo,  j  j 

adventurous  than  their  fellow  craftsmen,  made  their  way  subiaco,Siveyn/ieym 
to  the  Benedictine  monastery  at  Subiaco,  a  day's  journey  and  Pannartz,  1465 
from  Rome.  There  they  finished  the  first  book  printed  in 
Italy  and  perhaps  the  first  printed  Latin  Classic^  in  Sep- 
tember, 1465.  Of  this  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  a  single  leaf  is  jiso,  London,     ^^ 
shown.  The  Subiaco  type  is  considered  the  most  splendid  ^^f^^ndene  Press, 
used  by  any  of  the  early  presses.  It  was  followed  closely 
by  Emery  Walker  and  Sidney  C.  Cockerell  in  design- 
ing the  type  used  by  St.  John  Hornby  in  the  later  books  Malory,  Mortc  j^ 
from  his  Ashendene  Press,  represented  by  a  copy  on  f^;//o«'^W/f»^^'/r 
vellum  of  Dante's  Paradiso^  issued  in  1905,  and  by  the  Press,  19 13 
1913  Malory's  Morte  dArthur. 


J  J     Bessarion, 

T    Plato,  Rome, 
S-xveynheym  and 
Pannartz,  c.  1469 


D    Decades, 
Venice,  Wendelin 
de  Spira,  1470 


16    ^f'^"^' 
Opera 

Minora,  Boston, 

Merrymount  Press, 

1904 


y  im    Eusebius,  De 

I    euangelica 
praeparatione, 
Venice,  Jenson,  1470 


_  O    IVinskip, 
William 
C ax  ton,  London, 
Do-Tjes  Press,  1909 


SwEYNHEYM  &  Pannartz  wciit  on  to  RoME  in  1467. 
There  they  made  the  important  discovery  that  the 
heavy,  angular  gothic  type,  modelled  on  the  writing  of 
the  Northern  scribes,  had  gone  out  of  fashion  in  Renas- 
cence circles.  The  devotees  of  the  new  learning  had 
adopted  a  more  delicate,  rounder  letter,  and  they  used 
a  lighter  ink.  The  printers  promptly  adapted  their  type 
and  presswork  to  conform  to  the  prevailing  style.  This 
type,  still  known  as  "roman,"  was  used  in  the  treatise 
of  Cardinal  Bessarion,  Adversus  cahimniatoreni  Platonis, 
printed  by  them  about  1469. 

JoHANN  OF  Speier,  with  his  brother  Wendelin,  intro- 
duced printing  at  Venice  in  1467,  using  a  roman  type 
that  retained  some  of  the  gothic  solidity.  This  is  shown 
in  the  Livy,  Historiae  Romanae  Decades,  finished  by 
Wendelin  after  his  brother's  death.  It  used  to  be  said, 
echoing  William  Morris,  that  no  good  books  have  been 
printed  since  the  Fifteenth  Century.  This  opinion  was 
challenged  in  1904  by  the  Merrymount  Press  in  its 
Tacitus,  Opera  Minora,  v^Kich.  was  designed,  with  books 
like  this  Livy  in  mind,  to  be  as  good  in  type,  page, 
paper,  and  presswork  as  any  older  book. 

Nicholas  Jenson,  a  Frenchman,  and  the  second 
printer  at  Venice,  produced  a  type  for  his  first  book, 
Eusebius,  De  evangelica  praeparatione,  which  has  met 
with  the  highest  praise  —  close  imitation  —  from  the 
time  it  appeared  to  the  present  day.  It  was  copied  by 
Emery  Walker  and  T.  J.  Cobden  Sanderson  in  the  type 
for  the  latter's  Doves  Press,  and  by  J.  F.  van  Royen  of 
The  Hague  at  his  Zilverdistel  press,  the  most  inter- 
esting of  contemporary  Continental  experiments  in  fine 
printing.  The  Doves  type  was  designed  for  a  quarto  page, 


the  size  of  that  of  the  Caxton  printed  for  the  Club  of  Odd  Holy  Bible,    j  g 
Volumes,  of  which  a  copy  on  vellum  is  shown.  The  i)oJ'e"'press 
larger  page  of  the  Doves  Btble  offers  a  better  compari-  1903-5 
son  with  Jenson's  use  of  his  own  type.  The  Zilver  type 
is  shown  in  a  copy  of  Shelley's  Prometheus  Unbound  t^ethemUn-  ^^ 

printed  in  1917.  bound.  The  Hague, 

William  Caxton  did  more  than  any  other  one  person   ^^   °-^   ' '^' 
to  bring  about  the  substitution  of  the  vernacular  for  the 
universal  Latin  tongue.  He  had  retired  from  the  wool 
business  and  was  engaged  on  the  favorite  relaxation  of 
his  later  years — translating  tales  out  of  French  into  Eng- 
lish— when  he  reached  Cologne  in  the  autumn  of  1471. 
The  new  way  of  making  books,  which  had  been  prac- 
ticed there  since  1464,  interested  him  because  he  had 
been  asked  to  furnish  copies  of  the  Troye  Book,  on 
which  he  was  then  at  work.  A  chance  remark  by  his 
foreman,  twenty-five  years  later,  identifies  the  press  at  Mayronis,      2 1 
which  the  English  traveller  was  shown  how  the  work  was  s°Augustini, 
done,  as  one  belonging  to  an  anonymous  owner  who  is  Cologne,  r.  1471 
known  from  one  of  his  principal  books  as  "The  Printer 
of  the  Flores  extracti  ex  lihris  De  Civitate  Dei"  a  compi- 
lation from  St.  Augustine  by  Franciscus  de  Mayronis. 

Caxton  set  up  the  first  English  press  at  Westmin- 
ster in  1476.  Many  of  the  hundred  titles  printed  there 
during  the  remaining  fifteen  years  of  his  life  were  his  own 
writings,  but  the  press  was  occupied,  when  not  working  Chaucer,      22 
on  its  owner's  translations,  with  the  poems  of  Chaucer  or  rales,  iVestminster, 
Lidgate  and  other  popular  pamphlets  or  books.  The  Caxm,  c.  1478 
first  edition  of  Chaucer's  Canterbury  'Tales,  of  which 
a  few  leaves  are  shown,  was  one  of  the  earliest  things 
undertaken. 


2^  f^oragine,  Wynkyn  de  Worde  Completed  the  second  edition  of 

pm/,  ^viftmhuter,  ^^c  English  Goldcfi  Legend,  the  compilation  of  the  medi- 
iVynkyn  de  iVorde,  eval  Lives  of  the  Saints  by  Jacobus  deVoragine,  which 
^^^^  had  probably  been  started  before  Caxton  died.  Wynkyn 

soon  came  into  possession  of  the  press,  at  which  it  seems 
likely  that  he  had  been  employed  since  1476,  and  car- 
ried it  on  until  1535.  He  reprinted  several  of  Caxton's 
2  A    Higden,        works,  among  the  earliest  being  Ranulf  Higden's  Poly- 
WestfZJr'°"^^°"'  chronicon,  a  chronicle  of  general  history  issued  in  April, 

Wynkyn  de  IVorde,     \  ^g  r 

^"^^^  CHRONicLEsof  universal  history  were  among  the  prof- 

itable productions  of  this  period.  The  best  known  of 
these  is  the  Liher  Chronicarum  of  Dr.  Hartmann  Sche- 
DEL,  issued  at  Nuremberg  by  Anton  Koberger,  the 
leading  German  publisher  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  Fif- 
Schedel,  tceuth  Ccntury.  This  contains  approximately  1800  pic- 
D  Nuremberg     tures  printed  from  about  64  C  different  blocks.  These  were 

Chronicle.  Koberger,  ^      ,  ,      _  ,  ^^^  '  ^  ,  ,  .  -,,7^ 

14.53  engraved  by  Michael  WoLGEMUT  and  his  stepson  WiL- 

HELM  Pleydenwurff,  who  had  a  proprietary  interest 
in  the  venture.  The  cuts  vary  in  value  from  the  28  por- 
traits of  a  Pope  used  for  226  individuals  to  the  double- 
page  view  of  Nuremberg,  or  that  of  Cologne  showing 
the  tools  used  by  the  workmen  on  the  tower  that  is  still 

26  9't^"^  r        unfinished.  Cologne  had  its  own  Chronica  van  Coellen  in 

Lnromcle, 

Joh.  Koelkoff,  1499  the  vernacular,  prepared  by  a  local  schoolmaster,  J ohann 
Stump,  with  more  veracity  than  judgment.  It  was  pub- 
lished by  Johann  Koelhoff  in  1499.  This  contains  the 
earliest  detailed  account  of  the  invention  of  printing, 
supplied  by  Ulrich  Zel,  the  first  Cologne  printer.  The 
disputes  which  have  enlivened  the  study  of  this  subject 
ever  since  are  clearly  stated  here,  before  the  invention 
was  a  half-century  old. 


Claudius Ptolemaeus, acosmographer  of  thesecond  Ptolemy,  Cos-    2n 
Christian  century,  supplied  most  of  the  geographical  in-  Tifenza'ucAten- 
formation  demanded  by  those  whose  curiosity  led  be-  ^^ein,  14.75 
yond  the  Chronicles.  His  Geography  was  first  printed  at 
VicENZA  by  Hermann  Levilapide  alias  Lichtenstein  in 
1475.  Maps,  of  which  those  in  the  Ulm  edition  of  i486,  Ptokmy,  Cos-    2% 
from  Johann  Reger's  press,  are  typical,  were  added  to  ^/^'^'^^f'^^  i  g^ 
all  the  succeeding  editions.  Twenty-five  of  these  were 
printed  during  the  next  hundred  years.  Although  based 
on  data  more  than  a  thousand  years  old,  this  work  served 
the  needs  of  Europe  until  1570,  when  it  was  at  last  sup- 
planted by  the  great  Dutch  geographer,  Abraham  Or-  Ortelius,         20 
TEL.  He  began  by  peddling  his  own  maps,  but  as  soon  orlt^r^rarum 
as  the  commercial  value  of  his  l^heatrum  Orbis  Terranifn  Ant-werp,  piantin, 
was  assured,  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  Christopher  '^ 
Plantin  of  Antwerp,  who  had  established  his  claim  to 
the  leading  place  in  the  publishing  world. 

Erhard  Ratdolt  is  famous  for  the  beautiful  borders  Pomponius       rsQ 
and  initial  letters  in  the  books  he  issued  at  Venice,  but  dI^u  orbis  f^emce 
his  service  to  his  contemporaries  was  largely  in  supply-  f^('iolt,  1+82 
ing  the  needs  of  those  who  could  not  afford  the  bulky 
Ptolemy,  or  who  wanted  more  accurate  calculations. 
For  the  former  he  issued  Pomponius  Mela's  De  situ 
orbi's,  and  for  the  latter  the  works  of  Johann  Muller. 
Miiller,  better  known  as  Regiomontanus,  from  his  na-  KalenJer,        ^  j 
tive  Konigsberg,  was  the  leading  astronomer  of  that  age.  jo/i^MiiJier,  1474 
He  maintained  a  private  press  at  Nuremberg,  where  Rat- 
dolt may  have  been  employed  and  where  the  German 
Kalender  was  printed.  When  Muller  was  summoned  to 
Rome  in  1475  to  revise  the  calendar,  Ratdolt  settled  at  Regiomonta-     ^2 
Venice  and  became  the  principal  publisher  of  works  of  ^^^■'^^^^"^^'^^^^^^/z 
an  astronomical  character.  Miiller's  calculations  were  1482 


^^  Almanack  for -widely  uscd  in  preparing  Almanacks^  of  which  large 
Sc/tenck,\%^z^^'''^^'  numbers  were  printed  but  very  few  have  been  preserved. 
They  were  ordinarily  issued  as  broadsides,  to  be  posted 
on  a  wall,  like  the  one  for  the  year  1494  in  the  types  of 
Peter  Schenck  of  Erfurt. 
^  .    Breydenbach,      The  Grand  Tour  of  the  Fifteenth  Century  led  to  Je- 
tt  M^aZz,''"''^''''  rusalem,  and  was  extended  by  bolder  travellers  to  Mount 
Reunvich,  i486       Sinai.  Bernard  von  Breydenbach  of  Mainz  made  this 
journey,  taking  with  him  an  artist  to  assist  in  preserv- 
ing the  record  of  their  experiences.  His  Peregrinationes 
in  Montem  Syon  was  printed,  perhaps  first  privately,  and 
quickly  became  the  most  popular  book  of  travel  of  the 
time.  Thirteen  editions  are  recorded  between  i486  and 
^  H  Breydenbach,  \  ^23,  in  Latin,  German,  and  Flemish,  in  French  at  Lyons 
in,  sfeielTorlfh,  ^nd  Paris,  in  Dutch  at  Haariem,  and  in  Spanish  at  Sara- 
c.  1495  goza.  The  panoramic  view  of  Venice  was  drawn  by  the 

artist  while  the  rest  of  the  party  were  trying  to  nego- 
tiate for  transportation.  It  is  printed  on  four  sheets  and 
measures  643^  by  10^  inches. 
^f.  VonMegen-        SCIENTIFIC   INTEREST  found  cxpression  chicfly  in 
o      berg.  Buck     books  for  thosc  who  wanted  medical  advice,  although,  as 
burg,Baemlerfi^-js  ^^  CoNRAD  VON  Megenberg's  Buch  der  Nutur^  printed 
by  JoHANN  Baemler  at  Augsburg,  a  larger  public  was 
not  neglected.  The  Hortus  Sanitatis^  a  name  given  to  a 
^^  Hortus Sanita-  group  of  general  treatises  on  the  medical  properties  of 
o  I  tis,  Mainz,     plants,  contaius  in  its  expanded  form  sections  on  the  ani- 
ey  en  ac  ,ii,<)\    ^^^  ^^^  mineral  kingdoms,  on  fishes,  and  on  the  most 
vital  test  of  human  wellbeing.  It  was  illustrated  by  over 
a  thousand  cuts,  which  average  a  hiejh  decree  of  keen 

r,Q    Arnoldus  Vil-     ,  .  ,  i    u         .      i      .u- 

o"  lanovanus,     obscrvation  and  accurate  portrayal.  How  truly  this  was 
Herboiarius,  characteristic  of  the  widespread  scientific  spirit  is  shown 

Achates,  1491         by  the  more  strictly  botanical  Herbarius,  ascribed  to  the 


famous  physician  Arnoldus   de  Villa   Nova,   and  jrnoidus,        ^q 
printed  in  Northern  Italy  the  same  year  as  the  Rortus pluZes'Xyons, 
shown  from  the  RhineValley.  A  later  adaptation  from  the  ^o«'0'.  '527 
same  writer,  Vi  l  l  ano  vanu  s,  '^resor  despouvres^  is  a  charm- 
ing example  of  the  work  of  a  Lyons  printer,  Claude  Fries,  Spiegel   .  q 
NouRRY.  In  striking; contrast  to  this  are  the  equally  efFec-  '^f  Art^"y,        . 
tive  illustrations  in  Lorenz  Fries's  Spiegel  der  Artzny^ger,  1518 
printed  by  Griiniger  at  Strassburg  in  1518.  Italian 
craftsmanship  and  scholarship  of  the  same  period  are 
shown  by  two  of  the  publications  of  Luca  de  Burgo,  LucadeBurgo,  .  j 
or  Patiolus,  the  Suttima  de  Arithmetical  printed  at  Tosco-  ^^^'f/^'^'/'^^'  ^ 
lano  in  1523,  and  the  treatise  On  the  Divine  Proportions 
of  Letters^  from  the  press  of  Paganinus  de  Paganinis  at  Patiolus,  .  2 

Venice  in  1509,  with  cuts  from  drawings  of  the  human  p^,^',"J,«^^ ^,„,v^^ 
face  and  figure  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  Paganinus,  1509 

The  Italian  Classics  soon  began  to  rival  the  old 
Romans.  Many  editions  of  Boccaccio's  vernacular  writ-  Boccaccio,        .rs 
ings  are  represented  by  a  single  example,  the  Libro  di^^J^""^  &  p.ji 
Florio  &  di  Bianzafiore  chiamoto  Philocolo^  printed  at  Ven-  Piero,  1472 
ice  in  1472  by  Gabriele  di  Piero  and  his  partner.  Maestro 
Philipo.  The  Dante  printed  at  Florence  in  1481  by 
Nicolo  di  Lorenzo  is  the  first  illustrated  Dante  and  the  „ 

1    1         1       •  1  •    1  •  Dante,  Com-      a    a 

second  book  m  which  copper  engravings  were  M's^^a.  media Divina,^^ 
The  workmen  had  so  much  trouble  with  these  plates,  re-  ^/°>'^"'^^^  ^"^f"  '^' 

.  '■  Lorenzo,  148 1 

peating  at  the  head  of  the  third  canto  the  one  already 

used  for  the  second,  that  the  remaining  pictures  were 

printed  on  separate  slips  of  paper.  Venetian  printers  were 

more  successful  with  the  small  woodcuts  which  they  in-  Dante,  Com-     a^ 

troduced  into  several  competing  editions  of  Dante,  one  ^l-],]^,,  pZ't'ndi 

of  which  was  issued  by  Pietro  di  Piasiis  in  1491.  PiasHs,  1491 

Picture    Books   made   the   decade   of  1490-1500 
memorable  in  every  European  centre.  At  Venice  the 


^        Operette, 
Florence,  B.  de  Libri, 
c.  1496 


Ai-j    Savonarola, 
T  /     Semplicita, 
Florence,  L.  Mor- 
giani,  1496 


aQ    Brant,  Stulti- 
T      fera  Na'vis, 
Basle,  B.  de  Olpe, 
1497 


Bra?it,  Stulti- 
fera  Na--vis, 
Lyons  J  Sacon,  1 49  S 


49 


50 


Verardus  and 
Columbus, 
De  insults  in'ventis, 
Basle,  B.  de  Olpe, 
1494 


5  J    Horae  B.  V. 
Mariae,  Paris, 
Pigouc/iet,  1498 


vernacular  Bibles  and  editions  of  the  popular  Latin 
Classics  were  issued  with  cuts  similar  to  those  in  the 
Dante.  Florentine  book  illustrators  attained  the  same 
goal  by  quite  distinct  methods.  They  supplied  a  cut  for 
the  first  page,  and  more  rarely  others  in  the  text,  of  the 
tracts  and  sermons  of  Savonarola,  of  which  the  two 
shown  are  typical  of  the  large  numbers  issued  during 
the  brief  period  of  his  ascendency. 

Sebastian  Brant,  a  professor  of  Laws  with  a  taste 
for  literature,  made  the  closing  Fifteenth  Century  decade 
noteworthy  for  the  upper  Rhine  Valley  by  issuing  his 
versified  writings  with  numerous  cuts.  Bergmann  von 
Olpe  of  Basle  brought  out  in  1494  the  first  edition  of 
Brant's  Narrenschiff,  the  Ship  of  Fools,  which  became 
the  best  known  picture  book  of  that  century.  It,  and 
its  115  pictures,  appeared  in  pirated  editions  at  Nurem- 
berg, Reutlingen,  and  Augsburg  before  the  year  was 
out,  and  some  twenty-five  editions  came  out  during  the 
next  fifteen  years.  Whatever  dulness  the  author's  moral- 
izing may  give  this  work  is  more  than  atoned  for  by 
the  graphic  style  in  which  his  artist  epitomizes  the  daily 
life  of  the  time  and  its  especial  manifestations  of  uni- 
versal human  foibles.  Another  book  of  1494,  from  Berg- 
mann von  Olpe's  press,  is  Verardus,  In  laudem  Ferdi- 
nandi  Hispaniarum  regis,  in  which  the  Columbus  Letter 
is  reprinted  with  pictures  of  ships  copied  from  the  illus- 
trations in  Breydenbach's  Peregrinationes. 

At  Paris  the  vogue  of  the  Book  of  Hours  of  the 
Blessed  Fir  gin,  Horae  B.  V.  M.,  or  Livre  d'Heures,  led  to 
a  demand  which  the  scribes  and  illuminators  were 
unable  to  satisfy.  Antoine  Verard  or  Jean  Dupre  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  replacing  the  painted  decorations  with 


woodcut  borders  and  engraved  pictures.  The  idea  met  Horae  ro 

•111-  1  Jr        i_  rn        •        B.l^.Mariae,    J^ 

With  pubhc  approval,  and  tor  the  twenty  years  toUowing  p^^is,  Fostre,  1502 
1490  rival  editions  came  out  on  an  average  of  once  a 
month.  Their  commercial  success  made  it  possible  to 
employ  the  best  artists  and  engravers,  while  the  sharp 
rivalry  ensured  the  careful  supervision  of  details  essen-  „ 
tial  to  the  most  finished  results.  Philip  Pigouchet  pro-  b.  y.Mariae,   So 
duced  the  finest  set  of  cuts  in  the  summer  of  1498,  and  ^^'*".  ^«'^-?''.  1503 
he  and  Simon  Vostre  maintained  their  high  standard 
for  another  five  years.  Thielmann  Kerver  was  a  close 
competitor,  keeping  up  his  quality  somewhat  longer 
than  the  others.  The  copy  of  his  Horae  in  the  exhibition, 
dated  1503,  is  not  noted  in  any  of  the  bibliographies. 
The  inevitable  deterioration  was  checked  when  Geofroy  B.i^.Mariae,  54 
Tory  turned  his  consummate  technical  skill  and  perfect  ^^''"'  '^'"7>  1531 
taste  to  the  task  of  preparing  a  new  set  of  cuts.  But  the 
vogue  had  passed,  and  even  in  Paris  people  were  think- 
ing of  other  things. 

In  the  Rhine  Valley  these  other  things  of  the  Re-  Pmder.specu-  rr 

-  -Ill  r    1  •  r    1  lumPasstoms,     J  J 

formation  absorbed  most  or  the  attention  01  the  patrons  Nuremberg,  1507 
of  bookshops,  but  the  printers  did  not  lose  sight  of  the 
advantage  which  a  woodcut  gives  to  a  book.  They  em- 
ployed the  best  artists  to  decorate  their  publications  on 
the  most  serious  subjects.  Hans  Schaeufelein  made  Martin  Luther,  r(y 
the  cuts  for  Dr.  Ulrich  Pinder's  Speculum  Passionis  Jcsu  Augsburg,  otnmr, 
Christie  issued  by  an  unknown  Nuremberg  printer  in  'S^o 
1507.  Daniel  Hopfer  did  the  border  on  the  title  of 
Martin  Luther's  Sermon,  printed  by  Otmar  at  Augs- 
burg in  1520,  and  Lucas  Cranach   those   for  other 
Luther  tracts,  one  of  them,  Fon  der  Beicht  oh  die  der  l'^^her,Von      rn 
Bapst  macht  habcn  zu  gepieten^  printed  at  Wittenberg  in  wittenber'^,  1521 
1521. 


I 


rQ  F.  Colonna, 
^  Hypneroto- 
machia  Polip/iili, 
Venice,  Aldus ^  '499 


m  /-v    Sabellkus, 
J  3/    Res  Feneta, 
Venice,  Andreas 
Torresanus,  1487 


f\r\    Petrarch, 

Cose  Volgare, 
Venice,  Aldus,  1 50 1 


^  -r    Dante,  Terze 
Rime,  Venice, 
Aldus,  I  502 


Early  Sixteenth  Century  book  buyers  in  France 
and  Italy  left  religious  disputes  largely  to  those  who 
made  this  their  business.  In  the  annals  of  printing  it 
is  the  period  of  two  great  families  of  Scholar-Printers. 
At  Venice,  Aldus  Manutius  signalized  the  opening  of 
the  century  by  demonstrating  the  possibility  of  bringing 
literature  within  reach  of  the  masses.  For  the  previous 
ten  years  he  had  been  experimenting  with  the  business 
of  publishing  learned  books,  the  least  scholarly  but  most 
famous  of  which  is  the  Hypnerotomachia  Poliphili  of 
Franciscus  Columna,  on  the  whole  more  highly  es- 
teemed than  any  other  illustrated  book  ever  issued.  Then 
Aldus  made  a  happy  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  An- 
dreas Torresanus,  a  prosperous  publisher,  who  is  now 
best  remembered  because  he  had  the  sound  judgment 
to  buy  Jenson's  type  after  the  latter's  death.  He  used  it 
in  1487  for  the  History  of  Fenke  by  Sabellicus,  of  which 
the  exhibition  shows  the  copy  printed  on  vellum  for 
presentation  to  the  Doge  Antonius  Marco  Barbadico. 

Aldus  began  in  1501  to  publish  the  Latin  and  Italian 
Classics  in  a  form  which  up  to  that  time  had  been  con- 
sidered undignified,  but  which  could  be  sold  for  a  tenth 
the  cost  of  the  stately  folios.  He  was  able  to  do  this  by 
adopting  a  new  kind  of  type-letter,  that  was  called  at 
the  time  Aldine  or  Venetian,  or,  out  of  Italy,  by  the  name 
it  still  bears,  Italic.  While  he  was  printing  the  first  edi- 
tion of  Dante  in  this  new  format,  Aldus  adopted  as  his 
mark  the  anchor  entwined  by  a  dolphin,  which  appeared 
for  the  first  time  in  1502  at  the  end  of  this  book.  The 
Aldine  Anchor  came  to  signify  scholarly  and  typo- 
graphic accuracy,  and  all  over  Europe  these  editions 
were  sought  by  men  like  Philip  Melanchthon,  the 


rival  of  Erasmus  as  the  leading  scholar  of  the  Reforma-  Melanchthons  ^2 
tion,  whose  copy  of  the  1514  Aldine  Virgil  is  filled  with  i^^mcl,  Aldus,  1514 
annotations  believed  to  be  in  his  handwriting. 

Jean  Grolier,  the  son  of  a  Lyons  financier  who  be- 
came Royal  Treasurer,  formed  a  close  friendship  with 
Aldus  while  paymaster  to  the  French  troops  in  Italy,  ^"l^^         63 
An  eminent  connoisseur  in  many  lines,  Grolier  gathered  ^'enice,  Aldus,  1501 
the  most  distinguished  library  ever  collected. The  Aldine 
Homer  of  1501  from  this  library  has  Grolier's  arms 
painted  on  the  first  page.  Aldus  printed  for  him  special 
copies  of  most  of  his  important  publications,  as  the  large  o-vid,  Meta-    ^4 
paper  Ovid  of  1  CQq.  This  and  the  Macrobius,  In  som-  """'P^'°^e^^  Femce, 

■         a    .     ■      ■  .^^   .  r>      1      •  •      u-     J-  ^Idus,  iszz 

mum  hcipioms^  prmted  at  Basle  m  1535,  are  m  bmdmgs 

decorated  with  the  interlaced  bands  of  various  colors, 

usually  on  an  olive  or  dark  brown  morocco,  which  are 

so  characteristic  that  this  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  ^rMus^Bast  ^5 

Grolier  pattern — leading  to  a  common  impression  that  Her'vagius,  1535 

Grolier  was  a  bookbinder. 

Henri  Estienne  of  Paris  founded  a  family  which 
rivalled  that  of  Aldus.  Its  scholarly  reputation  is  due 
largely  to  his  son  Robert  and  grandson  Henri,  but  in 
part  to  his  friendly  relations,  culminatiner  in  a  family  Beroaldus,       AA 

^    .  .  ^  .  ^  ^  DeTerremotu, 

alliance,  with  the  printer-editor  Jodocus  Badius  Ascen-  Paris,  Badiui 
sius.  The  latter  is  now  remembered  because  he  selected  ^^""^'"^,  «5ij 
as  his  mark  one  of  the  earliest  representations  of  the  in- 
terior of  a  printing-office.  This  was  used  in  151  i  on  the 
title  of  the  first  edition  of  the  treatise  of  Philip  Bero- 
aldus on  Earthqudkes  and  Pestilence. 

Simon  de  Colines,  marrying  the  widow  of  the  first 
Henri  Estienne,  added  to  the  prosperity  of  the  firm  by 
developing  the  idea  of  issuing  series  of  books.  More 
important  to  posterity  was   his  support   of  Geofroy 


^«  Galen,  ToRY,  whom  he  employed  to  design  title-borders,  head 

P^^-,;^VcS;;;,*;'' bands,  and  numerous  initial  letters.  The  continued  use 

1529'  '    of  these,  some  of  which  appear  in  De  Colines'  edition  of 

Galen,  De  tumorihus,  gave  distinction  to  the  books  from 

««r^  ^^  Estienne  press  for  many  years.  Tory,  who  began  life 

^"  Chroniqiies,     as  a  collegc  professor,  became  a  publisher  and  printer  on 

Paris,  Tory,  1529    j^j^  ^^^  account.  His  mark  of  the  "pot  casse"  is  shown 

at  the  end  of  the  translation,  by  himself,  of  Jehan  Bap- 

^Pj   Montaigne's    TiSTE  Egnace,  Sv?nmatre  des  Chroniques  de  tons  les  Efnpe- 

y  Essays,  Cam-  f^^^j  d'Ei/rope.  Tory's  influence  on  Bruce  Rogers  can 

/viSr^oT''"^'     be  seen  in  the  Riverside  Press  edition  of  Montaigne's 

Essays. 

Claude  Garamond,  the  earliest  important  French 
^Q  rraiiianus,     type  designer,  cut  the  famous  Royal  Greek  types.  They 

Paris^l^tZnlf'''  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^  RoBERT  EsTiENNE  for  the  LiM/us  de  ?esti- 
154.8'  '      /^/z//^  of  Alexander  Trallianus,  as  well  as  in  editions 

of  the  New  Testament,  which  were  the  cause  of  a  pro- 
longed struggle  between  Estienne  and  the  ecclesiastics 
of  the  Sorbonne,  who  forced  him  to  flee  to  Geneva  as 
soon  as  the  King,  Francis  I,  was  dead. 
«  y  Feron,  Cata-  French  Printers  at  this  time  established  a  tradition 
/      logue,  Paris,   ^^        ^^  ^^^^^  -^^  ^q^j^.  decoration  which  has  given  their 

fiascos  an,  1555  c  ,.,  r  11  tl  u 

productions  a  higher  average  or  excellence  than  can  be 

claimed  for  any  other  country.  This  was  due  in  good 

part  to  the  work  of  Michael  de  Vascosan  and  that  of 

«2  Pare,Anato-  Jehan  DE  RoYER.  Vascosan  printed  in  1555  the  armo- 

Hum^n  ta^^sT  ^'^"^  Catalogue  des  Ducz  et  Connestables  de  France  by  Jehan 

Royer,  is(>i  DE  Feron.  Roycr  is  represented  by  Ambroise  Fare's 

Anatomie  universelle  du  Corps  Hiimain  of  1 56 1 . 

Vesaiius,  English  PRINTING  of  the  Sixteenth  Century  is  fairly 

73    Anatomia,      shownbythrec  books  of  1545, 1577, and  1590.  Oneis  the 

1545 "'        '^  '     epitome  of  Andreas  Vesalius,  Compendiosa  totius  anato- 


miae  delmeatio,  printed  by  an  alien  John,  who  took  the  HoUnshed,       ^  . 

name  of  Herford  or  Hartford,  for  Thomas  Gem inie,  who  lollion  ^Harrison 

engraved  the  title-page  and  other  illustrations  for  this,  1577 

the  second  English  book  with  copper-plate  engravings. 

The  others  are  Raphe  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  and  Sir 

Philip    Sidney's  The  Countess  of  Pe?nbroke's  Arcadia, 

which  was  printed  by  John  Windet  for  William  Pon- ■S'^'^^'^y'-f^''^^-  ^r 

soNBiE,  the  most  important  publisher  of  the  Elizabethan  'ponsoJ'ie/i'sgo 

period. 

Christopher  Plantin  closed  the  epoch  of  the  great 

Printer-Publishers. The  differentiation  of  the  functions  of  ^'^"^  .•^^^''^    ^6 

making  and  selling  books  had  been  going  on  since  1480,  c/mlJaice,Graece& 

when  Anton  Koberger  was  already  publishing  rnore  {;f ^'"^  ^''^■^'^'■^' 
111         1  11-  1-  ri-1    P^^nfi'h  1569-72 

books  than  he  could  print  on  his  own  presses,  or  which 

he  eventually  kept  twenty-four  busy.  Plantin's  great 

achievement  was  the  monumental  Polyglot   Bible, 

printed  from  types  especially  designed  by  Garamond, 

and  bound  in  eight  volumes  on  the  smallest  paper  or  in 

eleven  on  vellum.  It  was  undertaken  on  the  strength  of 

promises  by  Philip  II,  which  the  Spanish  monarch  was 

unable  to  fulfill.  Instead,  he  granted  certain  monopolies 

for  the  printing  of  service  books,  which  enabled  the  firm, 

a  generation  later,  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  fortune 

which  preserved  the  plant  and  the  archives  until  they 

were  made  into  a  public  museum  in  1870.  A  copy  of  stoug/itons      11 

Plantin's  Hebrew  Bible  of  i  C76  has  a  local  interest  be-  fi'^i'^eiv  Bihw,  Ant- 

•     11  1  1        i-»  r  nverpjPuoitifiyi  ^76 

cause  It  has  been  treasured  by  Boston  owners,  for  one  or 
another  reason,  ever  since  William  Stoughton  wrote  his 
name  in  it  in  1654. 

The  Polyglot  Bible  of  1572  was  the  second,  both 
due  to  Spanish  patronage,  in  which  the  Scriptures  are 
printed  in  the  original  languages  of  the  various  portions. 


^g  Biblia  Sacra  with  the  Standard  translations.  The  first  Polyglot  Bible  was 
Aicaid  "inwidus  de  produced  with  the  support  of  Cardinal  Ximenez  at  Al- 
^ror^r,  1513-17     CALA  in  1513-17.  It  is  a  notable  example  of  Spanish 
printing,  as  well  as  scholarship.  The  Greek  type,  which 
follows  a  bookhand  of  an  older  school  than  the  cursive 
Greek  forms  foisted  upon  the  learned  world  by  Aldus, 
is  regarded  as  the  best  ever  cut.  Before  the  Alcala  Bible 
yo  Polyglot         '^as  completed,  a  Psalterium  Hebraeum,  Graecum,  Arabi- 
Gema,Porrus,isiS  cufii  &  Ckaldaeuffi  had  been  printed  at  Genoa.  This  has 
a  particular  American  interest  because  one  of  its  anno- 
tations contains  the  ftrst  printed  biography  of  Christo- 
pher Columbus. 


\ 


D.  B.  Updike,  The  Merrymount  Press,  Boston 


^88 


I 


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